Number of the day

80 percent

That's how much of the European solar-panel market has been captured by Chinese companies, up from almost zero in 2004, according to the industry group EU ProSun. The European Union has threatened to impose tariffs on solar panels from China, saying producers such as Germany's Solarworld may be victims of dumping, or selling products below their production cost. The EU has nine months to decide whether to impose tariffs on Chinese panels, a step taken this year by the United States.

Hear here

"It's not a nice, simple, easy story that Apple is going to come in and turn the world upside down and we're all going to live happily ever after."

Craig Moffett, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein, on Apple's efforts to reinvent TV viewing. The company's engineers have been working since 2005 to design a better user interface that lets viewers quickly find shows and movies, yet the Cupertino company has faced resistance from cable providers like Comcast that don't want to cede control of their services and customers. The result: One source says Apple won't be releasing a new TV system this year, as analysts had predicted.

Heads up

The U.S. Labor Department releases its monthly employment report Friday, and economists in a poll expect an increase of 130,000 nonfarm jobs in August, a slower pace of hiring than July's 163,000. The unemployment rate is likely to be unchanged at 8.3 percent. It would be the 43rd straight month that the politically sensitive figure has topped 8 percent.